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Food, family and memories are as intertwined in the South as if woven on the same thread. At any function we attend, from a party to a wedding to a funeral, we are as likely to talk as much about the food that was there, as we are about why we are gathered. ~Mary Foreman

I'm your cook, not your doctor. ~PAULA DEEN

I found out what the secret to life is: friends. Best friends. ~Ninny Threadgoode

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Deep South Dish is about basic, country style southern cookin' with an emphasis on coastal south dishes and most often, cooking from scratch. Please understand that this site and it's Facebook Fan Page are not from a corporate website for some major company with thousands of employees. There is no test kitchen other than my own little galley style home kitchen. I am the sole proprietor of this spot, and I am not a chef, professional or otherwise. I am just a plain ole home cook, posting all of my recipes for you to hopefully enjoy. You won't find fancy or gourmet or pretentious here.

Please also keep in mind that these are my recipes, done to my taste and while I am thrilled to share them with you, if you are looking to duplicate exactly a recipe that matches a memory of one of your grandma's recipes, my recipe may not be the same as your grandma's recipe was. I am always after younger folks to sit at the hand of their grandmas and watch them cook, writing down everything, so that they can carry on all of the food traditions and flavors to their own children.

If you don't happen to like a recipe, or a certain ingredient in a recipe, or the way a recipe "looks" in the photograph, PLEASE feel free to skip that recipe for pete's sake. Without leaving your "opinion." Just mind your manners is all I'm asking. If you wouldn't walk into somebody's kitchen and say that to their face - well, just don't say it online either.

About serving size. I have tried to estimate serving sizes on some recipes, but it's just that. A guess. Generally speaking, I do not try to calculate that since I am only a home cook, not a test kitchen, and for the most part, I offer my time here for free! I have no intention of deconstructing a cooked recipe to see how many 1/2 cup servings there are in it. Appetites vary among people and I have found you can't please everyone - someone will always disagree with my estimate. Generally speaking you'll find my recipes are designed for a family, and unless otherwise noted, will feed somewhere between 4 to 6 people, but again, that is only a guess and depends on appetites. You can look at the ingredients in most recipes and tell generally how many people it will feed, but I think it'd be safe to say that if you're a party of 2, you'll probably want to cut most recipes in half, unless you don't mind leftovers.

Besides "classic southern recipes," these are the foods we eat Down South.

Bottom line. I am first southern, and second a food blogger, so if I cook it, I'm gonna post it - whether it's "traditional southern" or not, and hopefully you will enjoy seeing that variety of recipes outside of the classic southern recipes.

Yes, a lot of the dishes I make are full fat. And made with sugar. But, you can make changes like substituting artificial sweeteners and you can lower the fat in most recipes by using lower fat substitutes. And, there are even a few lower fat recipes here too.

Yes, I sometimes un-apologetically and proudly use products like Velvetta or condensed soups, or convenience products, and I am fully endeared to lil smokies sausages and meatballs done up in the classic chili sauce grape jelly way for parties. I use homemade whipped cream but I use Cool Whip too. I cook from scratch and I use shortcuts. I have an affinity toward certain name brand products, like White Lily flour, Land O'Lakes butter, Crisco shortening and Slap Ya Mama Cajun seasoning, but I also use many generics. Walmart Great Value products are my friends! This is true southern cooking and I make no apologies for it.

I sure hope that covers all of those nay-sayers out there. One thing that I have discovered is that putting yourself out on the internet and opening up your kitchen to the world, also opens you up to a level of "anonymous" rudeness that would likely not happen if that person were actually visiting in your home kitchen. I've seen it in young people and in older folks too - some even older than me! Folks just seem to be losing their people skills and politeness has flown out the window while people seem to have no problem saying just about whatever is on their mind with little restraint- no matter how rude or uncalled for - when they are saying it on a keyboard instead of face to face in person. Sad.

I should mention that any comments - here and on the Facebook Fan Page - that are rude, snarky, unduly negative or otherwise uncalled for, add nothing positive or do not otherwise contributed to the conversation will be deleted.

I repeat. If you don't happen to like a recipe, or a certain ingredient in a recipe, or the way a recipe "looks," feel free to skip it for pete's sake. Without leaving your "opinion." Just mind your manners is all I'm asking.

Anyway, on to my "skills" in the kitchen...

I wasn’t one of the fortunate southern cooks that learned right at the elbow of my Mama or my Grandma in the academy of the kitchen, though they were certainly both mighty fine cooks indeed and I certainly made my observations. My mother’s role was very traditional and back then, there weren’t any fancy names for it. She was simply put, a housewife.

Her purpose was to bear children and to manage a household, while my father controlled the money and every other aspect of the marriage. Mama did it all, and, except for the occasional chore she might hand off to one of us kids, she did not care to have others get in her way, especially when it came time to cook.

I understand that in a way because I too am like that.

Having raised only one son in the traditional way of what I’d learned, and no daughters, I too did it all and even today, I am quick to turn down offers for help in the kitchen. I am a bit of a perfectionist and I have my ways of doing things. I always enjoyed the solitude of my kitchen and I am quick to run my husband out of it if he ventures in while I’m in the midst of creating. I do not want anyone or anything to interfere with my thought processes or my rhythm - like an artist. Not to say that this is right or wrong; it just is. Back when I was raising my son, those traditional roles still existed pretty strongly, even when women went to work. Had I had a daughter, things might have been different in the kitchen, I don’t know. Now that I have grandchildren, once they are a little older and able to venture safely into the kitchen with me, I suspect it will definitely change!

I became a bride at the age of 19. By 23 I had my son. That was my university.

I had a propensity from a very young age to observe, to research, investigate and experiment, and this is how I learned to cook. I took what I saw my Mama and my Grandma do, those careful observations, and combined them with book knowledge, practice and failures. This is how I learned to recreate the flavors that came out of their kitchens and how I learned to develop a lot of my own original recipes{which is why I get highly irritated when other bloggers take my recipes and post them on their blogs without giving credit to my site}. What you see here is the result of many years of trial and error, and an ever-evolving learning process that continues even today and will continue until the good Lord calls me home.

These recipes are my heart and soul, and I hope that you get as much pleasure from cooking them for your family, as I have for mine!

I just found this site Wednesday while looking for some of my childhood Southern favorities. While I thought I was rid of fat Southern cooking forever, the older I get and the longer away from the South - the more I yearn for foods I grew up on. I especially loved the Bar-B-Q of West TN, chess pie, chicken and dumpling, green with ham hock and many many more. I will be on this site a lot.Liz

Hello! Not sure how I found my way to your blog, but I'm glad I did. Haven't had a chance to check out any of your recipes--as a new food blogger, I was interested in reading what you had to say to prospective commenters about not being negative or rude. Good points. You sound like a lovely person. All the best, Jean

I just found your blog. I was looking for old fashioned chicken and noodles like my grandmother made. Actually, I already make a pretty good batch! I can't duplicate hers because she went out and grabbed an old hen. Got it ready for the pot, etc. I remember as a little girl watching her get a chicken ready. She pulled out a bunch of egg yolks of various sizes and one whole egg the hen hadn't laid yet. She would add those egg yolks to her broth before serving. It was the richest, yellow broth with fresh egg noodles and those little egg yolks floating in it---Oh my!

I have to say, your recipes are wonderful. I've been looking for soe good southern recipes to learn how to cook this way and I hit jackpot. I think it's so lovely that you blog about what you love to do. The Homemade Southern Banana Pudding is the first recipe I made, and I will no doubt make more from your kitchen.

Mary, I am thrilled I have found Deep South Dish. Your story & feelings towards food and the love of it, is truely similar to mine.I have a passion for food like no one else I know. I'm from New Orleans and have lived in the Dallas area after I got married since 1984. I see the pictures of your food and it looks exactly what I remember when I was a kid.I could go on and on. Thanks!Kathleen

Hi Mary, I'm new to your blog (stumbled on it looking for a fried corn recipe). As a fellow Floridian, I am so happy I found your site. Thank you for having awesome looking recipes : ) ... I look forward to trying MANY !!! ~ Deanna

Nice lookin blog ya have here. Looks like I can pull up a chair and sit back with a nice cold glass of southern sweet tea lookin at all you wonderful recipes :). From southern foodie to southern foodie Nice to meet ya! ~Cheryl ~The Southern Cookbook

Okay your site rocks. I just came across your link in mommyskitchen and OMG I am heaven. I have spent hours and still am not done looking thru all your recipes. I can't wait to try them out. Thanks for sharing your recipes with us. I am looking forward to cooking me some southern food.

I am so excited I found your site. I have spent hours already looking thru here and printing many of them I want to try. Thank you for sharing your recipes and I am looking forward to make me some Southern Food.

I discovered your blog a month ago and love it. I've made your fire and ice pickles as well as the red beans and rice, they are both awesome! Keep up the great work - thanks for taking the time to share with us!

Hi Barbara and I am so sorry for the inconvenience. I currently have a right click restriction on my page to prevent copying and pasting my content and uploading my photographs because of a couple of Facebook "recipe" groups who are stealing content to share it on their page in violation of my copyright. Please look for the "Print this" link at the bottom of the recipe in the meantime which will give you a printable document.

I hope to have things back to normal soon. Please accept my apologies for the current inconvenience.

Thanks for taking the time to comment - I love hearing from readers and I read every single comment and try to respond to them right here on the site, so stop back by!

From time to time, anonymous restrictions and/or comment moderation may be activated due to comment spam. I also reserve the right to edit, delete or otherwise exercise total editorial discretion over any comments left on this blog. If your comment serves only to be snarky, mean-spirited or argumentative, it will be deleted. Please mind your manners.

Hey Y’all! Welcome to some good ole, down home southern cooking. Pull up a chair, grab some iced tea, and 'sit a bit' as we say down south. If this is your first time visiting Deep South Dish, you can sign up for FREE updates via EMAIL or RSS feed, or you can catch up with us on Facebook and Twitter too!

You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces – just good food from fresh ingredients. ~Julia Child

The classic southern plate for supper is made up of meat and three, cornbread or rolls & a tall glass of sweet iced tea.

Oftentimes what makes a recipe southern, is as much a state of mind as it is a matter of geography - Southerners simply decide a particular food is southern, and that's that." ~Rick McDaniel, Food Historian

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